Thing # 14 Podcasting and Bookmarking

Yeah! Let's cheer for Podcasting and Bookmarking. Podcasting has been around for a while.  It is like old Radio and TV.  Podcasts are audio and/or video files that are streamed via RSS feeds to your iPod, smart phone, tablet or computer.  There are numerous podcasts to listen to and learn all sorts of things.  Rick Perry helped create educational podcasts with the Texas Education Agency.  They are easily found through iTunes. Just look for the iTunes U button and search for TEA.  At first all I could find were old 2012 podcasts, but with a little probing I found more recent ones from this summer.
There was one in particular called Metaphor and Contrast that provided clear examples in just 4 minutes.  It used clips from President Kennedy and other world leaders.  Another one I liked, "I have a question: What is 21st century learning?" This was an audio visual podcast that was exceptionally clear and through wonderful graphics demonstrated how the 21st century learning revolves around creative thinking and the power of an inquisitive mind.

Podcasts are easy to make and easy to upload to free access locations like iTunes U.  It takes a bit of skill to define metaphor and contrast in just 4 minutes with examples.  This is a good tool to help develop the ability to articulate ideas eloquently and with economy of speech.

 Don't get fenced in or limited in research because you can't remember how to locate all those perfect URLs from the sites visited over summer vacation. Next time, bookmark them!

No, not the browsers bookmark, that limits you to one computer and one browser.  Many people use an iPad at home, a computer at our desk, and one in the classroom.  That could mean Mac OS, iOS and Windows 8, or it could mean Safari, Chrome, Explorer and, my favorite, Opera. So check out Delicious  .  Delicious lets you save a site from the browser plug-in or cut and paste the URL.  Then add a description and some clarifying Tags, and it's saved.  Next time you can search by tag or title or topic and Delicious will collect all of the sites that are similar or that you want together.  This really saves time.

Tags?  A tag is like a fast find.  Take the site http://epltt.coe.uga.edu/index.php?title=Bloom's_Taxonomy for example.  I could find it by Blooms Taxonomy or UGA.EDU and get thousands of suggestions. Or I could go to Delicious and search for the tags I gave the site: Critical thinking, Blooms, HLT, and PinE. I would find six sites that I have seen before, and liked, and that are about the same idea.  But wait there's more! Delicious is social as in web 2.0.  You can search you friends' site and get even more suggestions.  Plus you can share them with your students, sending them only the sites you select.
So next time you get boxed in, use a social book mark like Delicious.  Tags are great, but work best when develop a system.